C.L. Bevill's Blog, page 8

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday OR How It Doesn't Feel Like Sunday

I'm beginning to feel like weekends are my other job.  First, painting the den.  It needs two coats and a lot of cutting in.  People and animals just watch me because the den is the most used room in the house.  I can't do it all at once because it would kill my carpel tunnel, so it's maybe an hour a day.  Today, HIM, the man to whom I'm married, changed the light toggle switches.  It turns out that not all the switches in that room are connected to the same circuit breaker.  (Learned this the hard way and now I'm afraid to touch the switches without rubber gloves.)  (NEVER too old to learn new stuff.)
And because getting shocked is so much fun, I had to find a YouTube video, too.
It's so much better when it happens and you have a British accent.

So then I have to do the laundry.  Doing laundry sucks.

Then there's the leaf blowing.  It turns out that when you buy a house with a lot of trees, because it's got a lot of trees, because it's pretty, that a lot of trees give up a lot of leaves.  A HELLUVA LOT OF LEAVES!
I would totally rake leaves in a storm trooper outfit if I could find a storm trooper outfit that fit big girls.
I couldn't find a picture of a fat storm trooper.  But I did find Fat Batman, so it's almost as good.

What was I talking about?  Okay, electrocuted by a wall switch and raking leaves until I almost puked.
This is what you're really supposed to do with leaves in a pile.  (We've been blowing most of ours out into the woods out back.  It's really green if you think about it.  We're helping to make dirt.  Feeding the worms.  The worms feed the birds.  The birds do some other stuff, like poop seeds out which make trees and bushes.  The trees and bushes make oxygen.  We breath the oxygen.  See.  Totally green.  Fie upon the neighbors who put their stinking leaves into bags.)

Then there's blog writing.  Usually this is a lot of fun but when I'm out of ideas, I kind of hate it.  I look like this.

Yes, exactly like this.  Especially when someone disturbs me, which happens a lot in a house with everyone home.
Then there's this...
And let us not forget this...
Okay, I'm done.

Various, Random, and Sundry: My Middle Names!

I suppose I enjoy discussing what's happening in my life and work.  When things happen, and they do happen, I certainly enjoy ranting about it.
Guess what I'm talking about?For example, last night we went to Walmart to pick up some photos.  Why, you might ask?  Because my daughter needed a photo of herself with her chosen victim, er, interviewee, for a veteran's day project.  Since I didn't have a lot of time to get the photo.  I downloaded it to Walmart and had them do it in an hour for no extra charge.  They send me a helpful text saying it was ready.  There.  The scene is all set.
Maybe I need to go to Walmart more?  Naw.Then.  Then, the great word that precedes all that is odd and inexplicable in life.  Then when we showed up at Walmart, there was no one at the photo lab in the back of the store.  By the way, getting to the photo lab involved asking the greeter at the front of the store who gave directions, thusly.  "Ya'll go straight on back.  When you get to the big aisle ya'll want to go right.  That's the big right, right?  Then, about fifty feet or so, there'll be the photo place.  If you've gone to the shoes, you've gone too far.  Ya'll understand?"  Great.  But NO ONE was there.  And as HIM, the man to whom I'm married, will tell you, this is a recipe for Fat Woman's sense of injustice.  Furthermore, there was a sign.  A sign that said, "Saturday 9 am - 8 pm."  I checked my phone.  Yes, it was 7 pm.  This was the point where I said several statements which were overheard by both my daughter and the woman with her grown daughter who were using the computer terminals at the photo lab to design someone's wedding invitations.  These statements included foul language and a beseechment of why in the name of Kodak had I ever thought this way of going would be easier.  (Wedding invitations at Walmart?  Really?  Seriously?  OMG.)
 Just a small town boy walking his pet alligator...HIM got on his cell phone and called Walmart, because HIM loves to do stuff like that.  The person he talked to said the photo lab was closed.  I gestured at the sign frantically, er, angrily, and HIM hung up before I could grab it from him.
I had to think about this for a moment.(This is why I don't shop at Walmart anymore.  That an incident back in the 90s which involved one of the senior citizen greeter/things chasing us out into the parking lot yelling, "YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!"  True story.  I swear.)
This is like one of those pictures that you stare at
and stare at and THEN it becomes clear.HIM related the information to me.  I said, "Where's the manager?" and stomped into the front of the store.  HIM wisely took our daughter to where the game section was located.  (She had her change purse and was prepared to waste quarters in a wild and woolly manner.)  There at customer service, I had to wait for the single employee to park a shopping cart full of returns in a way that made her personally happy.  She saw me but she did not really care.  Finally I asked her about the STUPID photo lab hours and she said, "We're horribly understaffed.  You have to go back and talk to the electronics clerk.  She'll help you."
I'm not sure what this is, but I would
have taken a picture of it, too.I think stared for a while, trying to prevent my eyes from rolling back in my head.  (Through years of practice I can finally do it, but it's still hard.)
I used this before but I couldn't help myself.I tromped back across the entire store (it's a SUPER Walmart so I'm entitled to bitch) to the electronics section where the sole employee picked up a ringing phone just as I trudged to the counter.  Her conversation went like this, keeping in mind that I only heard one side: "Yeah, I didn't know that.  Hmm.  Well, I don't know about that.  Hmm.  I haven't heard that."  Five long minutes later I realized that she was trying to figure out how to transfer the person but couldn't.  Finally, she finally accidentally hung up on the person and turned to me.  Then someone else came up and said that she was needed in the returns area.  It turns out that this solitary individual was manning three sections at the same time.  (My annoyance quickly changed to pity.)  She got me the pictures and handed them over to me and then had to deal with the mother/daughter/wedding invitation fiasco.  ("Is this really ecru or is it off white?  Because if it's off white, I may vomit.")  (Wedding invitations at Walmart?  Really?  Seriously?)
I totally need Xanax for most of my shopping experiences.To sum.  I got the one stupid picture I needed for my daughter's social studies assignment and I hate Walmart more than ever.

Random Stuff OR Not Really Random BECAUSE I Got Caught in a Train of Thought (Train of Rant)

Warning: May diffuse on random courses of thought.  Could be irritating, irrational, and possibly amusing.

On ebooks.  I was in Target recently.  (I like Target.  They gave me a card that means I get 5% off every time I shop there, so I tend to shop there.  Plus they have the tea I like.  Did I mention I'm kind of a tea junkie?  Did I say this would be random?)  I got into a conversation with a woman who liked my t-shirt.  Here's the t-shirt because it kind of sparked everything that followed.
There.  I run around Targets wearing strange Poe-related joke t-shirts.  Well, the woman got the t-shirt and eventually the conversation turned to books because Poe = author = book reading.  And the woman said, to my horror, "I only read real books."  (I hadn't said anything about being a writer at that time.  She just let me have it out of the blue.)  Let me say that she did emphasize the word real and she said the whole sentence in a sarcastic way just to let me know what her innermost feelings of abhorrence are about not-real books.  Because we all know that ebooks are not REAL books.  (And somehow I managed not to kick her in the shin and throw her purse two aisles over.  Hey, I would have been kicked out of Target and it would have made me sad.  Plus jail time, yuck.  The handcuffing would have been a real hoot, however.)

Real book =
This is ironic since War and Peace is available on Kindle for $.99.  I could probably find it for free if I wanted.  Has anyone ever really read War and Peace?  I mean, I think I started it about twenty times and couldn't wade through it.  It's supposed to be a classic.  (Truly literary people are hissing at me now.  I can hear it.)  (Didn't I say something about randomness?  I can't help myself.)

But alas since I can't appreciate it I must not be a real reader either.  Ebook writer = non-real reader = spawn of the hell beast.  (I might be over telling it, but that's my prerogative.)

No, I write electronic books.  (Mostly.)  See:
Maybe I should have used a Nook or a Kindle, but hey I have a Xoom, so I have all the apps.  However, when I said something to the woman I think she was envisioning this...
I did the flames on my autosketch pad and it looked funny, not like flames so I added the pitchfork for effect.  Wait, I'm not done.  Just for more effect and for the whole reality of how I felt when I discovered that I wasn't a REAL writer.
Maybe she was envisioning more of this.  I do not know for certain.  All I can do is imagine and take a lot of license, because it's my blog.
However, I remained calm in the face of the glaring Luddite.  Barely.
In fact, I gave her one of my cards and told her how she could read the books on her PC or on her smart phone.  (Irony is having a smart phone but not an ereader.)  She said she would read something but I suspect I wasted a perfectly good business card on her.

Wait.  This is how I really felt when she said ebooks weren't real.  (You have to have seen the movie to appreciate it.  Now go and Netflix The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The one with Donald Sutherland, although the first one is good, too.)
And since I'm not done making fun of the woman at Target, here's this...

See something always interesting happens to me when I go shopping.

OH NOES! Fat Woman Goes Shopping Again!

Yes.  There was a shopping trip to Target, which is one of my favorite places to taunt.  Next to Walmart, that is.  Walmart just asks for it.  I never see the people at Target that I see at Walmart.  Obviously there are some people wandering around Target that could be just as easily walking around Walmart, waiting for people to whip out their smart phones and take a picture, but I haven't seen them yet.  Maybe it's because I typically go to the store during the daytime and most Targets don't stay open 24/7.  (Some Walmarts do and the only time I remember taking advantage of that was when my daughter was an infant and she wouldn't go back to sleep.)
Obviously this person has an afghan dog.  Hey, I've never seen this
person at Target.Anyway, we're prancing around Target.  (You might think that I mean figuratively speaking, but there was a point where Cressy and I were prancing.  HIM, the long-suffering man to whom I'm married wouldn't be caught dead prancing.)

And I wandered down the chips aisle.  I know I'm not supposed to go down the chips aisle.  Not legally, of course, but in the event that I have a chip craving of ginormous proportion, I'm not supposed to be there.  I don't know who invented potato chips but fat people everywhere are cursing them.

Instead of chips I found:
I find myself wanting to commend this company's marketing director.  Also I find myself wanting to hum "Boom Chicka Boom Boom" because I can't help it.  In my head it sounds just like a soundtrack of a sleazy porn movie.  (Not that I would know.)

But then I saw:

Do I need to say that this also wasn't chips.  Chex Mix has broadened its horizons.  Really.  Muddy Buddies.  I bet they won't sell this for long.

But I wasn't done with the chips aisle.  I found this, actual chips.  Well, allegedly actual chips.  I haven't opened them to see.  Yes, prodded by my only child I was forced to buy it.  She thought there were real voodoo dolls inside:
There are not real voodoo dolls inside.  Or voodoo doll shaped potato chips, which is very disappointing.

But I wasn't quite done with the chips aisle, for there was one more thing to catch my attention, which says a lot about me.
Yes.  Naked Pita Chips.  Stacy's Naked Pita Chips.  I think that Stacy meant that her pita chips were plain but I'm also certain that Stacy counted on people taking a second look at her pita chips.  I did not buy these.

So once I was done with the chips aisle, off we went to...dah-dah-dahhhhh...the toy aisle.

It's just not done to escape Target without visiting the toy aisle.  But don't fret because those tricky people at the toy companies are always coming up with toys that I can make fun of.  Really.

First there was weird tadpole/mermaid Lalaloopsy doll.  Why play with a mermaid when you can play with a freaky little tadpole creature?
I don't even need to say anything else about this because it stands for itself.  See on the top?  "Mermaid sleeps in pod!"  It's a little body snatcher right there in your Target Toy Department.

Of course, Target has been paying attention to the recent fascination with zombies as evidenced by this:
You're a complete doofenstein if you don't have a zombie strike nerf gun.  You need a zombie strike nerf gun.  Why?  Because zombies need to be nerfed.  I want a zombie strike nerf gun.  I won't be a complete woman unless I own a zombie strike nerf gun.  (And you thought women just wanted jewelry.)

But there were more dolls.  What the hella heck is up with half creature/half human dolls?  There was the little weird dog faced humans, who HAVE pet dogs, too.

Littlest Pet Shop is trying to expand its markets, too.

But My Little Pony couldn't be left out and they had half horsey/half human things too.
For $12.99 you can pretend gallop around and have three different changes of tails.  Hmm.

And I can't leave out Barbie, can I?  This model has a light up stomach dress.  Seriously, my daughter giggled.  You press some button and her dress goes all Broadway Billboard.  I forgot to look at the price of it because I was busy snorting.
Then they had this.  Yes, ladies, the original Batman.  Adam West, eat your heart out.  Not sure why kids would want an original Batman.  In fact, I think its only mommies and daddies who want an original Batman and Target can't put these dolls anywhere else.  I was just sorry they didn't have Robin.  Burn on Robin.
Robin got to be in the background.  Did anyone else practice "walking up the rope" on a wall and have their mother get pissed at them because they left footprints on the wall?  No?  Just me, then.  Mom was probably glad I hadn't figured out how to walk on the ceiling.

Then they had Catwoman.  Catwoman prompted a fight about who had been the original Catwoman.  I was going for Eartha Kitt and HIM was saying that Batman was out in the 80s.  Strangers in the aisles were staring at us.  (I think they wanted to throw in Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway but I stared them down.)  HIM had to look up Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar.  The best one was Eartha Kitt.  (By the way, first Catwoman is Julie Newmar for those who can't help themselves.)
 There was a freaky little doll with yarn hair that I envisioned the moron cat eating and having to visit a surgeon for removal.  It even admits that it has loopy hair. After going through all of the toy madness we went through the Halloween section and Cressy spent her allowance.  Seriously. Yes, it's a foam geisha wig.  Cressy's going to wear it with her pink ninja outfit.  I'm not sure how that's going to work out but who am I to judge?  I was just glad that she hadn't seen the next thing.  Glow in the dark dog poop.  If you're going to have a dog go poo and you're out in the darkness, what better way to have glow in the dark dog poop? But hey, at least I didn't have to put the hot dog costume on the moron cat, who refused to walk in it.  In fact, he was pretty pissed off about the whole thing. 
Okay, that's enough until the next shopping trip.  Same bat time.  Same bat channel.

Randomtivity OR The Fun of Making Up Words! Burflemork!

I have been lagging on blogs.  I will blame it on Martian invasions, massive cat hair balls, HI nonsense, and a cold.  Some of that might even be true.

I have had THE COLD THAT WON'T GO AWAY.  It lingers and lingers and I had to go to the store to buy cough syrup that cost $20.  Seriously, they have cough syrup that cost $20 for one bottle.  They keep it behind the pharmacy desk and make you show them your driver's license and then they scan your driver's license.  Then they sell it to you.  But hey it works very nicely.  On the down side they probably think I have a meth lab in my garage.  Hah.  The only thing I know about meth is what I learned from Breaking Bad and I'm pretty sure that the local meth dealers watch that show for giggles.
And of course, that meant that I had to go Googling for stuff.  Who wants to see Walter White playing with puppies and rainbows?

Anyway, my daughter's moron cat decided to afford me with immeasurable amounts of entertainment when he carried in a cockroach from the deck.  The moron cat thinks all prey must be captured and delivered to the humans, whether we like it or not.  We cut him out of the garage so he can't get any more mice so cockroaches are coming in an enthusiastic second.  He certainly doesn't want to eat it but hell yes, it's fun to watch it skitter around the living room and look what the fat human does!  She levitates into a chair and swings a fly swatter around.  Okay then HIM, who is my hero, takes care of business and the cockroach gets introduced to our sewage system.

It doesn't sound bad, right?  But the moron cat saw where the bug went.  He was determined to get his paws on it again and didn't mind that I had my droid handy.

How many pictures do you take of the cat hanging over the side of the toilet?  I mean, it's a first for me and I had to go with it.
I couldn't help myself.
This is why God invented autosketch programs.

You'd think I'd run out after a while, but no-oh.  People are throwing themselves in front of my droid.  I swear.  Here's an example.  I allowed HIM to take Cressy shopping and this is the hat she came back with.  (HIM sure as hell wasn't wearing one, so you know he knew better.)

It's the butt end of a turkey and she's wearing it on her head.  She likes it.  She's been wearing it all day.  I'm not sure exactly what to say.  But the image of Hector ringing his little bell comes to mind.
And you have to have watched the Breaking Bad scene where Gus Fring gets it to understand this, but hey, it works for me.  Better than another photo of the moron cat looking at the floating cockroach in the potty.

Well, one more.

The Ransom of Brownie

  It started out as a nice day.  Then Brownie happened.  Watch out, Pegram County!  Brownie has returned to the Snoddy Estate.  His mother is seven months pregnant, ordered to bed rest and in desperate need of Brownie-free time.  So off Brownie goes to visit the Texas Snoddys!  It’s the middle of November, he’s ten years old, and they’ve taken away his homemade Taser.  How much trouble could there possibly be? Two men have decided to kidnap Brownie for the rumored Civil War gold the Snoddys reputedly have.  And that was their mistake, because no one with a brain in their head kidnaps Brownie Snoddy. No one. The Ransom of Brownie is book 4.5 in the Bubba series, taking place after Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note.  It is about 41,500 words long. Buy it on Amazon here. Buy it on B&N here. Buy it on Smashwords here.

Reasons Not to Blog OR I'm Pooped

When I first started the blog, it was three times a week.  I was totally into it.  Then it slipped to twice a week.  Then it slipped to once a week.  Now it's slipping again.  So today, I said to myself, "I should blog."  But then I added, "But I don't want to."  In the immortal words of Nancy Kerrigan, "Why me?  Why me?  Why me?"

Possibly it's because I spent the weekend taking care of the kid who is sick and who passed it to me.  I now have razor blade throat and the kid wants to go to the last day of the fair tomorrow.  I may die.  There you go, a reason not to blog.

But hey, I could totally come up with better reasons not to blog.

1.  Here's an old one but still relevant.  A meteor fell on my house/dog/cat/computer.

It could totally happen.

2.  My cat ate my computer/puked a hairball on my computer/or me/my cat decided that I wasn't permitted to use the computer.
 See.  Again.  Perfectly plausible. 3.  Doing blogs can cause genital warts.  The surgeon general said so.  (Maybe.)  Doesn't that look like a picture of a woman who would tell you that?  I think so and then it was pointed out to me that she wasn't the surgeon general anymore, which explains why I haven't seen her in the news lately.  Anyway, Koop was always my favorite.  For his name and his mustacheless state.  (Does anyone know that he died?  I need to watch the news more.  Who is the surgeon general lately?) 3.  I lost my computer.  It's true.  It was on my desk.  Then there were some other things on my desk and pretty soon my desk was a big pile of papers and weird books.  (There's a Fiji mermaid and a maneki neko sitting on my desk, sitting next to a Bubba name made out of fake deer antlers.  Swear to God.  My desk is the repository of all things lost.)  (Actual conversation last week.  HIM: Have you seen this receipt?  Me: It's on my desk.  HIM: We're fucked.)  (A maneki neko is one of those good luck cats that waves its arm.) This is supposed to be lucky, but it's obviously
not lucky for my desk.4.  My aunt/cousin/step-sister/brother-in-law once removed died.  It was a moving ceremony.  Many people cried.  I want to go to that funeral.  Did you know you can buy caskets at Costco?  I didn't know that.  I wonder if one would fit into my Explorer. 5.  I was mugged by evangelical atheists.  (Well someone had to mug me.  I was just picking them out of a group.) Stuck on the funeral theme.  This picture says a lot.  Funeral plus Corona.  I hope they have a crate of limes behind the beer.  And chips.  Definitely going to need some chips. 6.  I was kidnapped by terrorists, who eventually got tired of my whining and let me go.  I couldn't find any funny pictures of terrorists but there was this vintage sign about being buried in Florida and without tax, too.  Read the small print where it says "How to Kick the Bucket Gracefully".  That's an advertisement. 7.  I had to bail HIM/Cressy/Mother/Father/Mother-in-Law/Cousin's sister's husband out of jail. Still on that funeral theme.  It might be (wait for it) a long time before (wait for it) it dies a peaceful death.  Damn.  I just lost several readers right then.  I'd like to see Ahh-norld carrying a casket for real. 8.  My flash drive exploded.  My house was being fumigated.  The president called to get my opinion on some important matter of state.  It was stolen by zombies.  (Hey, I had to do a zombie reference.) Anyway.  Look at that.  I wrote a blog.   

Mountains of Dreams is HERE!

The exciting sequel to Sea of Dreams...This isn’t your mama’s world. Once the world was normal.  The day after the change, there were new creatures galore and nearly every human had vanished.  The survivors gathered together to make a new society and Sophie, a seventeen-year-old from Oregon, does her best to fit in.  Desperate to find a reason for living, she travels east to Washington, D.C. to meet with the new President of the U.S.A. and finds that existing and living are two very different things.  The old world hasn’t really been left behind and human treachery continues to threaten their existence. Available at B&N Available at Amazon Available at Smashwords

Part II of Sand in my Pantsies OR How I HAD to Caption More Photographs!

Went to Pensacola Beach.  Forgot my camera.  Did have my droid.  We did swim.  A lot, but I didn't take the droid on the beach so all the pix are from sightseeing and eating of the delicious shrimpness.
So we went to Fort Pickens, which is
an old fort way out on the peninsula that dates
from 1800-something or other.
A Civil War battle was fought here.
Also Geronimo was kept here as a prisoner.
We looked at stuff and went ooh-ahh.
Also we tap danced around the
gazillion ants that live here. Oddly enough we saw giant frigging mushrooms
at Fort Pickens.  GIANT, frigging
mushrooms.  These could have been aliens
from Planet Shitaki.
I tried to get Cressy to put her hand in there
for size comparison but she went eww
and ran away.
Ants might have been attempting to eat her
ankles.
(Seriously, a lot of ants.  I don't think
they realized they could eat the mushrooms.) HIM with the big weapon.
(I know.  I posted it on Facebook, too.  I couldn't
help myself.) We didn't spend ALL of our time at
Fort Pickens, but based on photographs, it
seems like it.
Cressy would not get inside the cannon.  Plus
there was a sign that said no climbing
on the cannons. See.
Keep off gun.
They forgot "the".
I'm a writer so I can
criticize someone else's grammar.
People do it to me ALL the time. This is one of the tunnels at Fort Pickens.
I like this picture.
You can't actually stay still too
long at Fort Pickens or
the ants will carry you away. HIM and Cressy, admiring the way
their feet were off the ground.
Man, this was a hot and sweaty place.
With man-eating ants and giant, frigging
mushrooms.  It also had
park rangers who hid inside their
air-conditioned offices and peered
at you suspiciously through the window. But hey, here was a place that was kind of
cool.  No ants either.
This is where the troops
keep the powder.  One wing was
all blown up because apparently
someone had been smoking where
they weren't supposed to be smoking.
Or maybe the ants did it.
Hell, it could have been the mushrooms. Here's where I was wishing I was.
With the Kahlua gods.
Anyway... I had Cressy act out my feelings of
internment.
Also Geronimo might have been
locked up here.
There was probably a sign that said
where he was really locked up but
I was too busy doing the
avoid-the-ants dance to
read all the signs there. This is where Cressy really wanted to
be.  No, really she wanted to be
at the pool.
See, she still has the concentration camp
bracelet on. We stopped to eat lunch at Crabs.
Also to buy stuff at Crabs.
HIM had to wear his reading glasses
over his sunglasses, reminding
me how sexy he really is.
Hubba, hubba. After lunch was more sand in the pantsies.
(Not an actually picture from Pensacola Beach
but remember I didn't take my droid
on the beach because I like having
my droid non-sea-watered and
non-sandied.)  (I love making up words.) So we drove home the next day
and saw an old truck in a truck.
This was a plant nursery.
I don't know what it means.
Maybe they grow trucks there.
I made HIM turn around and go
back to take this picture. And the next day after we got home,
it rained so much the garage flooded.
It's karma, I think.And thus concludes my photographic odyssey into the idiosyncrasies of our mini-vacation at Pensacola Beach.



Sand in my Pantsies OR How We Went to the Beach OR See Fat Woman Have Fun With Captions

Warning: Snarkiness contained within.  Just sayin'.

Recently our 9 year old daughter begged us to go to the beach, so we caved.  Off to Pensacola Beach we went.  I forgot my camera but hey I had the droid and let the captioning begin.
The view from our room.  So far so good.  No
sand in the pantsies yet. This is the bracelet the hotel wanted us to wear 24/7
because they apparently have problems
with people coming onto their property
and stealing their pool from their guests.
I wanted to compare this to a tattoo but I didn't want
to tick anyone off.  Seriously I felt like I had been
tagged by the Beach Patrol.  (Like they held us down while we
were tranquilized and tagged out bodies.  It was depressing.)
Also now I have a cheap, nonremovable bracelet
nontan line there. We did immediately go to the beach and collect a gazillion broken
shells, which I kept throwing away when the kid wasn't
looking but then she caught me and I had to keep them.
However I didn't bring
my phone with me and thus pretty much didn't
actually take many pictures of the beach itself.
But here I am drinking an alcoholic drink and enjoying
its Kahlua goodness while under a fan.
(Yes, there was sand in my pantsies.  In fact, I think
there was sand in places that my proctologist doesn't
know about.)
One of the few times Cressy was actually
at the table.  It turns out that most of the
restaurants in this area have playgrounds
because they know about the families who visit.
The playground is off to the right and that's where
she spent the majority of the time while I drank
my Kahlua infused icy goodness in a shady spot.
And I won't leave out HIM, who was enjoying a beer.
HIM said he didn't have sand in his pantsies but
I think he was lying.
Doesn't this look like a man with
sand in his pantsies?
This restaurant we were at had everything.
Alcohol, fried shrimp, and actual Cuban refugee rafts
we could admire. See.  The restaurant even had a begging cat.
Let me tell you.  I couldn't sit there and eat while
there was a skinny cat looking at me.
The cat ate more of my shrimp than I did. Of course, when I went to the bathroom, after
drinking the entirety of my Kaluha goodness,
they had a mark on the wall that showed us
that we should be thinking about
hurricanes.  (Way to make tourists relax!) I feel like a beach trip blog without an actual beach
shot seems silly, so I put in an old one.  This is Virginia Beach,
but it's the same ocean, right? The restaurant also had an old truck.  Booze, playgrounds, skinny cats,
deep fried shrimp AND rusting vehicles.
My God, it was like a veritable wonderland.
  See.  HIM and Cressy were so happy they hugged the boat
on the outside of the restaurant on the way out.
They wanted to take one of those bicycle cabs but I couldn't
do it to the poor skinny bastard.Coming soon... Part II - More sand in the pantsies and "How did that get sunburned?"